6 New Board/Card Games To Try Out

While the classic games like Monopoly, Scrabble and Uno are great fun for social gatherings, the number of new games have proliferated greatly over the last number of years as game designers dream up zombie survival adventures, city destroying sagas, or evil warlord hunting games. If you are clueless on which games to start off with, here are some board/card games worth giving a shot:

1) Politiko

The local Malaysian card game on politics which grant you the pleasure of poking fun at certain oddly familiar political parties while utilising scheming tricks up your sleeve to win voters for the general election. To win, you have to have eight Voter cards that meet the requirements of your Party. Before that can happen, players must negotiate the pitfalls of the “scheme” cards – either rising on the pork-barrel politics of free highway tolls and urban metro projects, or falling on crumbling allegiances and misplaced racial scapegoating. Click here to read the full article on Politiko.

Image credit: www.loyarbarang.com

2) Machi Koro

Welcome to the city of Machi Koro. You’ve just been elected Mayor. Congrats! Unfortunately the citizens have some pretty big demands: jobs, a theme park, a couple of cheese factories and maybe even a radio tower. A tough proposition since the city currently consists of a wheat field, a bakery and a single die. Armed only with your trusty die and a dream, you must grow Machi Koro into the largest city in the region. You will need to collect income from developments, build public works, and steal from your neighbors’ coffers. Just make sure they aren’t doing the same to you!

Image credit: www.boardagaingames.com

3) Bang!

The card game BANG! recreates an old-fashioned western shoot-out, with each player randomly receiving a Character card to determine special abilities, and a secret Role card to determine their goal. A player’s Role is kept secret, except for the Sheriff.

Four different Roles are available, each with a unique victory condition:

Sheriff – Kill all Outlaws and the Renegade

Deputy – Protect the Sheriff and kill any Outlaws

Outlaw – Kill the Sheriff

Renegade – Be the last person standing

“The Outlaws hunt the Sheriff. The Sheriff hunts the Outlaws. The Renegade plots secretly, ready to take one side or the other. Bullets fly. Who among the gunmen is a Deputy, ready to sacrifice himself for the Sheriff? And who is a merciless Outlaw, willing to kill him? If you want to find out, just draw (your cards)!”

Image credit: www.dvgiochi.com

4) Munchkin

Go down in the dungeon. Kill everything you meet. Backstab your friends and steal their stuff. Grab the treasure and run. This award-winning card game, captures the essence of the dungeon experience… with none of that role playing stuff. You and your friends compete to kill monsters and grab magic items. Don the Horny Helmet and the Boots of Butt-Kicking. Wield the Staff of Napalm, or maybe the Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment. Fast-playing and silly, Munchkin can reduce any group to hysteria and while they’re laughing, you can steal their stuff.

Image credit: www.thinkgeek.com

5) River Dragons

In RIver Dragons, you want to move your pawn over a system of bridge-like planks to the other side of the board. An easy task! Or at least it would be if everyone were working together, but alas you’re not. Instead you’re all working on your own right next to one another, each convinced that your way is best. In game terms, players simultaneously select one card from a set of five actions that’s available to each player. The actions allow players to place plank foundations, place planks, move their pawns, cancel other players’ actions, or remove planks or foundation stones. As can be expected for a design with simultaneous action selection, the game is rather chaotic.

Image credit: www.jugamosotra.com

6) Cards Against Humanity

Play begins with a judge, choosing a black question or fill-in-the-blank card from the top of the deck and showing it to all players. Each player holds a hand of ten white answer cards at the beginning of each round, and passes a card (sometimes two) to the judge, face-down, representing their answer to the question on the card. The judge determines which answer card(s) are funniest and is given an “Awesome Point”. The player with the most Awesome Points is the winner! The game encourages players to poke fun at practically every awkward or taboo subject including race, religion, gender, poverty, torture, alcoholism, drugs, sex (oh yes), abortion, child abuse, celebrities, and those everyday little annoyances.

Image credit: www.blog.mailchimp.com

Whether it is a gathering during the festive season or an event to break away from the mundane routine of life, we highly encourage everyone to detach themselves from technology and bask in the joy of social interaction with these fun (and potentially friendship ruining) games.